Discuss French Country Kitchen - help please on IKEAFANS.com. We're Personalizing the IKEA Experience. French Country Kitchen - help please - Need help with planning your remodel? Want a kitchen planner to review your ideas? This is the happenin' spot!.
And when I say French country kitchen - what I mean is a kitchen in the french countryside!
This is my first post, but I have been reading the forum avidly over the past month. In fact I have changed the plans several times after reading posts on here(what a great site!). I will try to explain what we want out of our project and hopefully you can give me some advice.
We are a family with three young children (8, 6 and 1) and a dog. The kitchen is the hub of our home, and the kitchen table particularly. We eat every meal here, we do homework, painting etc, we even use it to do the accounts! So any new plan has to include a table (we are planning to buy a new one so the size can change).
We run a holiday company and during the summer we cook for our guests three or four times a week. The kitchen needs to accomodate two fridges - one for our use and one for the business - and needs to allow for two people cooking at once. I cook cakes and tarts so I need a dedicated baking area.
We plan to install a woodburning stove in the kitchen - this will provide our heat and cooking needs in the winter. this is what we are thinking of:
but in cream.
I love the idea of this picture:
and would like to incorperate something similar in our kitchen.
I like the idea of independant kitchens, but admit that they are not the most practical, so I'm using two different units - Adel cream and Tidaholm Oak to give a less fitted look, and I plan on having open shelving above the sink and on the stove wall.
I'm using the European planner so you probably won't be able to see the cabinets so I've attached some screen shots as well.
Wow Fondatfancy! That is one gorgeous kitchen. I'm no kitchen designer so I'll leave that to the experts here on the site but I did want to welcome you to Ikeafans in case you weren't already. I can't wait to see how this evolves.
First of all, I hate you for living in my favorite country; oh how I wanted to make my life there!
Beyond that, I LOVE your inspiration shots! You have so much going on and so many tasks to do, it's definitely possible! I'm dead tired right now so I 'm not going to be much use as a critical eye.
I did want to mention that many of us have had much luck finding extra storage by making storage banquets. I modify mine to make 30" pullouts since I find drawers easier to access than doors in that situation (i've had several ikea built banquets.)
Welcome to the forum, can't wait to see your project unfold!
I have been looking at the benches that have been built by the members on here; we are not sure at the moment whether we will make one ourselves or get one custom made. It probably depends on which countertop we go for. I really like silestone, but it is very expensive here and it will mean I have no money left in the budget for extras.
Hello fondatfancy, welcome to IKEAfans! Bienvenue!
It looks like a really nice plan and it seems like you have really thought it out. I can only think of a couple ideas. The baking center and the oven are very far from each other. When the dishwasher door is open, it will block that path so one would have to walk behind those seated at the table to get between the baking counters and the oven. The person sitting at the end of the island might be in the way or in a dangerous spot when that refrigerator or the oven needs to be opened.
Between the clean-up zone and the baking center, under the window, you could have a lower cabinet or just a lower counter which would be nice for kneading bread or other such tasks.
In the prep zone corner, you will need a few inches of filler on each side. Otherwise the pullout cabinets that are perpendicular to each other will hit each other's handles when one tries to pull them out.
For the baking zone I have a small counter top oven which I do most of my baking in. They are very poplular in France and I swear by mine so I will be keeping it. This will go in the corner of the baking area.
For the area under the window I was going to put my trash cans there, but I would like to put them into some sort of unit, anyone know of a way to get lower pull outs or similar?? Could I do a mod of some sort? I need to drop down by about 12". I like the idea of having a lower unit for bread etc. At the moment I use the kitchen table for this, which I will still be able to do in the new plan.
How many inches of filler do you think I need for the prep zone pull outs. I can probably squeeze a few inches for the wall with the woodburner, but the fridge wall is tight.
A countertop oven sounds very handy and convenient!
There are several people here who have shortened the cabinets for various reasons. The thing to keep in mind is the available door sizes since doors are harder to cut down and have them look good. In North America we have an 18"H door that would be perfect for this but I'm not familiar with the sizes available in Europe.
The amount of filler needed depends on how deep your cabinet handles are, 2-3 inches is usually recommended.
Thanks for that tip Gloria. I was hoping to use 2 x 50cm (20") cabs for the trash, but they only do the shorter doors in the 40cm (16") so I'll have to do that and make up the 20cm - perhaps with a bottle rack.
I think I need to measure the wall with the oven on very carefully to see if I can make and extra couple of inches. If not a re-think is in order.
Since it's a baking center, I wonder if a bottle rack there would be good for storing rolling pins. Someone here showed some pictures of a collection, was it Zeuss?
Gloria
IKEAFANS is a trusted authority on the design of IKEA kitchens. From articles to get you started to tools and links designed to ease the way and special offers just for IKEAFANS, we've thought of everything to make designing your own IKEA kitchen a snap. Check out our Kitchen Planning Guide...
Confirm
Join In!
